


love the one you're with

by badboy_fangirl



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 01:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2369528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>for fear you will be alone / you do so many things / that aren’t you at all.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	love the one you're with

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/americanoutlaw/media/TVD/Steroline_zpse58079ce.gif.html)
> 
> Written for the fic-a-thon at rosaxx50's LJ, from lynzie914's prompt.

She can't really be in love with Stefan.

Because. Reasons.

All of them very, very good. Like, who wants to ruin the best and truest friendship she's ever had? And who can compete with Elena, even all this time later, even though she pines for Damon better than she ever loved Stefan, even though there is no chance they're ever getting back together. (Never, ever, ever.) And who can even read Stefan, anyway? She never knows exactly what's going on with him even when his words paint a very specific picture.

And then he just leaves, and she doesn't know where he is anyway.

(And she's so _pissed_ at him, but that's just because is she is best friend, or what? Best friends don't just abandon best friends.)

(Unless one best friend is in love with the other one, maybe?)

Tyler shows up at Whitmore one night, lamenting his human condition. It's not that he's unhappy to be "normal" again -- but he is back to having temper issues, and he's living in constant fear. It's like it was then, when the fear was real but unknown.

"Sometimes, I just think..." he trails off, not looking at her. "It's inevitable, you know? My destiny is to kill people, to hurt people, to destroy what I love."

That's when his eyes meet hers, and a swell of empathy rises up in Caroline. She doesn't kiss him because of their on-again, off-again relationship. To her, it's all over, and it has been ever since she realized she loves Stefan.

But loving Stefan is just as much a soul-destroying element as a werewolf gene, so when Tyler kisses her back, she speed-vamps him up against the wall, and tears his clothes off.

She fucks him with all the relentless emotion inside her, none of it for him at all, and he is powerless to stop her.

(The flash of Damon in her eyes is not intentional. It's not what she means, it's not who she is. And Tyler comes in her mouth, so she knows he likes it anyway.)

She tells herself when he leaves her dorm room in the middle of the night while she pretends to sleep that that's just the way they are now. Perfectly normal.

She only sleeps when she's finally alone, and it's fitful at best, interrupted when her phone buzzes on the bedside table.

Stefan's name blares at her from the screen.

She presses _ignore_.


End file.
